


The Man of Dreams

by Innwich



Category: Inception (2010), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Human, Deathfic, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Heist, M/M, Suicide, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 11:20:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2730509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innwich/pseuds/Innwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benny joined up with a new team that was led by Dean. The mission was to plant an idea in the mind of a crime boss, Crowley. But as the team went deeper into the dreams, Benny noticed a man was following them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man of Dreams

** Dream Level 1: Hotel **

_Dreamer: Garth_   
_Team: Dean, Sam, Jo, Ellen, Bobby, Benny_   
_Target: Crowley_

They were off to a bad start.

They were only in the first dream level, and they already had Crowley’s security projections hunting their asses.

Men and women were dancing in the center of the ballroom in pairs. Their heels tapped against the polished floor. A piano piece was wafting through the speakers. It sounded like something from a ballet. It wasn’t what Benny had had in mind when he’d told Garth to pick the music.

A chandelier hung high above them, throwing glitters of light on the walls.

Garth chucked back his ninth glass of champagne. The thing about dream-drinking was that he wouldn’t have to deal with a hangover tomorrow.

Benny loosened his collar. His dinner suit was finer than anything he owned now, that was for sure, especially after he’d been kicked out of his old team by the Old Man. Benny kept his cap in this dream, but he’d like to think he didn’t stick out much, despite the dirty glares that Sam was shooting at him now and then.

Benny knew when to ignore Sam by now.

“Balls,” Bobby said.

“What is it?” Garth said nervously.

Benny turned to look at what Bobby was watching.

It was a man dressed in a suit and a trench coat. The man kept his hands in his pockets, while he stared off into the distance by a window. He had a square jaw and a straight nose. There wasn’t anything particularly striking about the man, except that Dean, Sam, Bobby, and Ellen couldn’t seem to keep their eyes off of him.

“Ignore him, Dean,” Sam said lowly. “We’ve just started on the job. Don’t let him ruin it.”

“It doesn’t work like that and you know it,” Dean hissed. “You think I want this?”

“I don’t know what you want most of the time, Dean, because you won’t talk to me anymore,” Sam said.

“We don’t have time for this,” Ellen interrupted them. “Jo is talking to Crowley and risking her neck out there. We don’t need you two arguing and drawing attention to us.”

“Sorry,” Sam said.

Dean clenched his jaw and looked away.

The piano music swelled, and all the men on the dance floor twirled their partners at the same time.

“So who is that guy?” Garth said.

“Focus on the job, boy,” Bobby said gruffly. “We’ve got enough on our plates.”

This was why Benny didn’t like working with established teams. They knew each other well and had a history together. But Benny had needed to find work, and Dean was a good friend.

“What is taking Jo so long?” Dean said.

“You want Crowley to have a tearful reunion with his son, so it’ll break down his mental barriers,” Ellen said. “That’s what you’re getting. A hug ain’t gonna cut it, you know.”

“Uh? Guys?” Garth said. “I think they’re here.”

A man in a suit was peeking into the ballroom at the door. Something metallic glinted in his hand.

“We have to split up,” Dean said. “Hold out until Jo finishes talking to Crowley.”

“Dean,” Sam said.

“I don’t want another one of your lecture, Sam,” Dean said. He walked out of the room, and past the security projection outside the door. The projection gave him a cursory glance, and went after him. Sam quickly followed the two of them.

“Don’t wander too far. I want to everyone ready to regroup when Jo’s done,” Ellen said.

Ellen and Bobby left the ballroom, and headed down a different direction from the one that Dean had headed.

“Man, I need more of this,” Garth said with bright eyes, and went in search of more drinks.

Benny watched the projections dance. It got boring after a while, as the projections repeated their dance. They went one, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.

The music was playing on a mindless loop.

Out of the corner of his eye, Benny spotted a projection keeping to the wall, holding a small gun, and looking around the room fervently.

Benny put down his glass, and slid behind the man. As the man reached a far window, Benny pulled out a knife from his suit, and slid the blade in to the man’s back. He covered the man’s mouth, cutting off the choking noises he made. The man went limp. Benny dragged him to some floor-length curtains, and hid him behind them. It wouldn’t do to alert the other projections to a dead body in the room.

“Benny.”

Benny spun around, and nearly walked onto Sam’s shoes. “Dean’s not here.”

“How did you know I was going to ask you that?” Sam said.

“I didn’t see any other reason you would talk to me,” Benny said. “Any reason why you looking for Dean?”

“He doesn’t listen to me anymore,” Sam said, rubbing his chin. “Just tell him I’m looking for him, okay?”

Which didn’t answer Benny’s question at all. It had the smell of secrets all over it.

Benny hated secrets.

Sam walked out of the room, and a big man in a suit followed him.

After the two were gone, Benny wandered out of the ballroom and into the carpet-covered hallway. Dull tapestries covered the walls of the hallway. Music was coming from a few other ballrooms. Benny had little doubt that the music and the dances were much different from those in the ballroom that he’d just left.

At the end of the hallway, Benny stood in front of an old-fashioned elevator. It was one of those elevators that had a sliding gate instead of a slide. It was out of place in a hotel made out of glass and marble; it didn’t belong here. Benny should know; he designed this place and taught it to Garth.

Benny slid the gate open, and stepped into the elevator. There were only two buttons on the panel, labelled “B” and “1”.

There weren’t a lot of choices. Benny pressed the button for the basement.

The elevator moved downwards soundlessly, and came to a stop outside of a room.

The room had no door. The elevator opened directly into the room. Benny could see into the room through the sliding gate.

It wasn’t one of the hotel rooms that he’d designed for this dream level.

It was a small room that smelled faintly of mildew. The wooden furniture was worn with age. The green wallpaper was peeling and faded, and water stains spread along the ceiling. The curtain fluttered with the wind that was blowing in from an open window, and a sea of city lights blinked outside the room.

Which wasn’t possible. This was the basement.

Someone was grunting, and the sounds were coming from the only bed in the room.

The bed was a king-sized bed. The covers were tossed to the side of the bed, left as a crumpled pile on the floor next to the bed. There were two people on the bed, and they were as naked as the day they were born.

There was no mistaking those wide shoulders of Dean.

Dean had a dark-haired man pinned below him on the bed. He had the man’s legs hooked around his hips. He was leaning down and kissing the man, while he moved in and out of the man languidly. The man had placed a hand on Dean’s back, and he was meeting each of Dean’s kisses with as much passion as Dean was showing.

Benny stared, because he was man enough to admit it was a beautiful sight.

It wasn’t the first time Benny walked into someone’s wet dream, thought it usually happened under less stressful conditions.

“Come with me, Dean,” the stranger said.

Dean shuddered when he came. The man held Dean through it, running his hand through Dean’s hair. Dean let out a groan that sounded like a bit-off cry. “Fuck.”

The motel room went quiet and still.

The stranger tilted his head, and looked directly at Benny. “What are you doing here?”

It was then that Benny realized he was still standing behind the very visible gate of the elevator. And if he could see them, then they could see him too.

Dean twisted around on the bed, and Benny could barely keep from shrinking from his glare. Dean climbed out of the bed. By dream logic, he was clothed as soon as he hit the floor and came striding towards Benny with fury in his eyes.

“Brother, listen to me.”

“Dean,” the man on the bed said.

“I’ll talk to you later, Cas,” Dean said. He slammed the elevator gate shut behind him. He pressed the button for the floor where the ballrooms were. As the elevator rose, the stranger and the room disappeared from sight.

“It ain’t good to run off by yourself,” Benny said. “People worry.”

“Tell Sam to mind his own goddamn business,” Dean said. The elevator stopped. Dean yanked open the gate and stormed off down the hallway.

Benny watched uncertainly as Dean disappeared into one of the ballrooms.

When Benny looked behind himself again, the elevator had disappeared. All that was left was a tapestry of a sailing ship. Benny lifted up the tapestry. There was nothing but a blank wall behind it.

It was like the elevator and the room had never existed.

\- - -

** Dream Level 2: Streets **

_Dreamer: Ellen_   
_Team: Dean, Sam, Jo, Bobby, Benny_   
_Target: Crowley_

Benny blinked his eyes open.

He was sitting on the floor of the back of a van, wearing his old pea coat and jeans. There were no seats, but there were a couple of windows on the back doors. The van was sitting idle on the side of a street.

Benny tugged his cap low over his eyes, before looking out of the windows.

It was late afternoon. They were in a seedy part of town. The bars on the two sides of the road were starting to switch on their neon signs. It was too early for crowds to have gathered at the bars, but people were trickling into the bars.

Dean, Bobby, and Jo were sitting with him in the back, and they were all sporting plaid shirts. Benny had never been much of a plaid man.

“Is everyone here?” Ellen said from the front in the driver seat.

“An old man shouldn’t have to sit on the floor like this,” Bobby grumbled.

Sam shrugged guilty. He was riding shotgun. “Sorry, Bobby.”

“Yeah, we don’t want him being crammed at the back with the rest of us,” Dean said. “I don’t want to know what to smell Sam’s gas was like in a dream.”

“Damn straight,” Jo said.

Bobby guffawed. Benny couldn’t help laughing too, though it made Sam bitch-faced harder at him than ever. He wasn’t gonna get Sam on his good side any time soon, but he hadn’t really been planning on doing that anyway.

“Alright. Quit fooling around,” Ellen said, though Benny could hear the smile in her words. “We’re on a tight schedule.”

“Hey, isn’t that Crowley?” Sam said, pointing at the windshield. “What is he doing?”

The road had light traffic, but that didn’t explain why Crowley was standing in the middle of the road.

“Come on out, whoever you are,” Crowley said. “You think pretending to be my son is going to hurt me?”

“Crap,” Bobby said.

“A little bird has already told me someone is in my head,” Crowley said. “You won’t get whatever you’re coming for. My security will kill you first.”

While the team was staying quiet and still in the van, Benny spotted someone staring at them behind Crowley. A dark-haired man was standing on the other side of the road, staring straight into the van. Benny turned to look around the van, because no one was commenting on it. He only found Dean staring back at the man. It wasn’t Benny making things up in his mind. Dean could see him too. When Benny looked out of the window again, the man was gone.

Crowley waited in the road for a long time. A car honked its horn at him, and he slinked into one of the dingy bars on the street.

“What do we do?” Jo said.

“We go with our original plan,” Dean said. “Jo, taunt Crowley. Bobby, you’ll be the kidnapper of our fake Abaddon.”

“I always want to do that,” Bobby said.

“Okay. Do your thing, Jo,” Dean said.

Benny blinked and found himself staring at Abaddon’s face. Everyone knew that face, the biggest rival that threatened Crowley’s throne in the black market. Jo had the red hair down pat. She was wearing Abaddon’s leather jacket that had made the rounds on the news channels. Jo cracked her neck, and stood with the grace of a cat.

Benny could mistake her for the real Abaddon.

“Awesome,” Dean said. He handed Bobby a bag of rope. “We’ll pick up you two later.”

“Take care of yourself, boys,” Bobby said, and got out of the van with Jo.

Jo went into the bar that Crowley had disappeared into, whilst Bobby hung back in the crowd on the streets.

Ellen started the car, and drove.

Benny had designed three blocks for this dream. A few convenience stores and Biggerson’s were placed liberally around the area. Those stores looked identical anywhere in the real world anyway. A bridge stood at the end of the district, arching over a wide river that circled the area.

As Ellen drove, it started becoming more apparent that men on motorcycles were patrolling the streets. Gunshots echoed through the air a few times. A glass window shattered, and an alarm rang shrilly.

“What was that?” Sam said.

“Crowley’s projections are trying to find us,” Ellen said. “Crowley’s security is getting more aggressive the deeper we go. Someone is gonna get killed. I don’t like this.”

“Why does that matter? I thought we’d only wake up if we died in a dream,” Benny said.

“Haven’t you done this before?” Sam said, watching Benny with narrowed eyes.

“I design dreams. I don’t always go into them,” Benny said. “And I sure as hell never went three levels deep.”

“The sedatives that Garth made for this job are too strong. If we die here, we won’t wake up; we’ll drop right into Limbo,” Ellen said. “You know about Limbo?”

“Only that it exists in the deepest recesses of our mind,” Benny said. “It is an unconstructed dream space that goes on forever.”

“That’s right,” Ellen said.

“I heard stories about people being trapped there and left in a coma, because they didn’t realize they were dreaming,” Benny said, “Never saw it happened though.”

“They aren’t lying,” Dean said.

“Dean,” Sam said.

“Shut up, Sam,” Dean said.

“Do we have a plan to keep us from dying in here?” Benny said.

“I’m gonna talk to Crowley, convince him we’re his security,” Dean said. “We have to get him to come with us for the last dream. It’ll be the deepest we can get into his subconscious.”

“If he sees through you, we’ll be goners,” Benny said.

“I’ve done this before,” Dean said.

“I hope so, brother. I didn’t sign up for a suicide mission,” Benny said drily.

The van stopped at a red light.

Benny could almost hear a pin drop in the silence that followed.

Dean pushed open the back doors, and got out of the van. He disappeared into a crowds of college kids on the streets. Benny didn’t have time to react before the light turned green and the van started moving again.

“Why would you say that?” Sam said, turning around in his seat to glare at Benny. Benny could almost hear something sizzled in the air. That was how hard Sam was glaring at him.

Even Ellen was frowning at Benny in the rearview mirror.

“You should’ve known better,” Ellen said.

Secrets.

If there was one thing the Old Man had taught him, it was that dreams were no places for secrets.

“Sorry,” Benny said grudgingly.

“Nothing we can do about it now. That boy will come to his senses eventually,” Ellen said.

But Sam wouldn’t stop glaring daggers into the back of his head.

Benny looked out of the window. The old sensation of having knots in his stomach returned. It reminded him of what he felt when he’d learn of what had happened to Andrea. It festered low in his abdomen. He didn’t know what he’d done this time, but Dean was a good man. He would find Dean. Ellen might dream these streets, but Benny was the one who designed them. He knew every crack and bump of them.

Ellen was driving in circles. On a few rounds, Benny saw the same projections walking on the streets. They’d likely reached the end of the area and doubled back. They were all trapped in this small world that Ellen had dreamt up for them.

The van was driving near the bridge when Benny saw them.

Dean stuck out like a sore thumb in his plaid shirt on the bridge, and he was standing with the dark-haired man.

Benny pushed open the back doors, and jumped off the moving van.

“What the hell?” Ellen said.

Benny landed on his arm. It wasn’t bad enough to kill him, but it ripped a part of his sleeve off. He got up on his feet just soon enough to avoid getting hit by a truck. Benny stumbled out of the road, but the loud horns from the truck rang in his ears. He headed to the bridge, where the two men were.

High railings ran along the two sides of the bridge. The stranger was standing on the ledge of the bridge, outside of the railing, and his hair was mussed from the wind coming from the river.

Dean was standing on the safe side of the railing, a good few feet away from the man.

“Why did you do it, Cas? Why did you tell Crowley?” Dean said.

Cas stared at him solemnly.

“Stop it, Cas. Stop telling him things,” Dean said. “Why are you doing this?”

“You know why,” Cas said.

Dean was tugging at his silver ring. It wasn’t usual for people like them to have a totem, but Benny had caught Dean doing it far too often, even when the team had been planning the heist in the real world.

Dean might have a looser grip on reality than Benny had thought.

“Cas, we’ve been over this.”

“Brother, what are you doing?” Benny said.

Dean looked up at Benny’s approach. “Stay back.”

Benny stopped at the sharp tone in his voice. “What is going on?”

Cas balanced himself neatly on the ledge. “Dean. Take a leap of faith.”

“I can’t watch this again, man. Stop it,” Dean said.

Cas blinked at Dean, but his eyes were unfocused. He shook his head and turned back to the river. “Come with me, Dean.”

“Don’t do this, Cas,” Dean said. “Please.”

Cas spread his arms. “This isn’t real, Dean. We have to leave this behind.”

“Cas, come on. Don’t do it. Look at me.”

Cas took a step forward and leapt off the ledge.

“Cas!” Dean shouted, lunging forwards, trying to catch him.

Benny pulled Dean away from the railing. Benny chanced a look down, but he saw nothing in the waters below the bridge.

Dean dropped to his knees, and pressed his hands over his eyes. “No. No.”

“Come on, brother,” Benny said, tugging Dean to his feet. “We have to go. We have a job to do.”

\- - -

** Dream Level 3: Warehouse **

_Dreamer: Jo_   
_Team: Dean, Sam, Bobby, Benny_   
_Target: Crowley_

It was night time, and it was quieter than a graveyard.

They were in the deepest and final dream level.

Benny was holding a shotgun, and so were the rest of the team. They were standing outside a chain-link fence of a warehouse. The warehouse was falling into disrepair. Half of the roof had caved in. Most of its windows were boarded up with rotting strips of wood. The metal door at the front had a large dent in it.

“I know this place,” Crowley said. “It doesn’t exist anymore.”

It had taken Benny hours to look through newspapers in the library archive, and then to reconstruct it and teach it to Jo. The original warehouse had been torn down two years ago. It wasn’t a surprise, considering what had happened to Crowley’s son there.

“You’re dreaming, remember?” Dean said. He was a con-man. His voice was steady as a rock. “We’re here to find out what is Abaddon hiding about your son.”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” Crowley said, not looking away from the warehouse.

Dean and Jo and Crowley headed the team, and Sam and Benny and Bobby brought up the rear. There was only a man holding a gun stationed at the front door of the warehouse.

Jo stabbed the man with a dagger, and Dean picked the lock to the door. They all crowded through the front door. The hallway behind the door was split up into three hallways.

“Bullocks,” Crowley said. “How are we going to find anything here?”

It didn’t matter, since all three hallways led to the same destination. Benny only built the maze, because Dean wanted to disorientate Crowley before they performed the inception, but Crowley didn’t know that.

“We’ll have to split up,” Dean said.

“Are you sure?” Crowley said.

“I’ll go with Sam,” Benny said.

Sam was about to protest, but Dean shot him a warning look. They were supposed to be Crowley’s projections that protected Crowley. They weren’t meant to argue amongst themselves. “Jo, you go with Bobby. Crowley, you are with me.”

“Lead the way,” Crowley said, and he set off into the middle hallway with Dean. Bobby and Jo took the hallway on the right.

Sam and Benny walked down the hallway on the left. The hallway was narrow, and their footsteps echoed dully around them.

“I’m guessing you want to talk to me,” Sam said.

“You guess right,” Benny said. “I didn’t know people outside of the team can follow us into the dreams.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam said. “No one outside of the team can follow us.”

“What about the man in the trench coat?” Benny said.

Sam frowned. “Are you talking about Cas?”

“Who else would I be talking about?”

“Cas, uh.” Sam cleared his throat. “He died a few years ago. The one we’re seeing is Dean’s projection.”

Benny cocked an eyebrow at that. He’d always known Dean had had some demons to deal with. Sam refused to look at him and didn’t seem inclined to elaborate, so Benny asked instead, “Why would Dean’ projection try to get us killed?”

Sam sighed. His shoulders sagged, like a balloon that had lost its air. “I wish I know.”

Gunshots rang out from behind them. Crowley’s security projections must be gaining on them. As a matter of fact, Benny could hear footsteps coming around the corner.

“Run,” Benny said.

Benny and Sam ran, only stopping every so often to shot at the projections on their tail. The projections in the front fell, but other projections were climbing over their dead bodies, surging towards Benny and Sam.

Blood trickled down the walls. Sam finished off the last of the projections with his gun, while Benny knifed a projection he’d pinned on the floor.

“How far away are we from the door?” Sam said, panting.

“It’s right around that corner,” Benny said. He prodded one of the projections to make sure he wouldn’t come to life and go after them again. “Go ahead.”

Sam went to the door. It was a small red door, with a flickering exit sign mounted above it. When Benny rounded the corner, to his surprise, he saw Cas standing before Sam. Sam was holding a gun, but he didn’t raise it against Cas.

“Cas?” Sam said warily.

“Sam.” Cas nodded, and stabbed him in the neck.

Sam clutched at the knife, but he was dead before he hit the floor and crumpled in a heap.

“Well, shit,” Crowley said, arriving at the door.

Cas trained his intense gaze on Crowley. “Crowley.”

“Who are you really, Castiel?” Crowley said. “What do you want?”

“Crowley,” Dean said, coming out from behind Crowley. “You have to go.”

“Not until I get some answers out of this man,” Crowley said.

Gunshots were coming from the hallway where Jo and Bobby were in.

“We don’t have time for this. Go!” Dean pushed Crowley through the red door. The door swung shut and locked behind Crowley with a click.

Benny took a step back away from the growing pool of blood from Sam’s body. It might be a dream, but Sam looked a lot like the stiffs that Benny had seen in the real world.

Cas stretched a hand out to Dean. “Come with me.”

“Cas,” Dean said, sounding utterly broken, but Cas disappeared their very eyes.

Jo emerged from the other hallway, holding two guns and with blood on her face.

“Where’s Bobby?” Benny said.

“Cas killed him. Broke his neck,” Jo said.

“What we gonna do now?” Benny said.

“Crowley is going to reach the room,” Jo said. “Are we going through with the plan?”

Dean was strangely quiet throughout the whole exchange.

“It’s your call, chief,” Benny said.

“Keep going,” Dean finally said. “You know what to say to him, Jo.”

“Yeah, I got it,” Jo said. She pushed open a secret door that was cut into the wall. The secret door led to a short cut to the room where the body of Crowley’s son had been found in the real world years ago, tied to a chair and rotting away, his throat slit by Abaddon.

But this time, in this dream, Crowley would find his son alive and well, begging him to tear down his criminal empire and to stop seeking vengeance against Abaddon.

That was the inception. That was the mission.

“Benny.”

“I’m listening,” Benny said

“We’re gonna get Sam and Bobby,” Dean said.

“You sure about that? Cas is trying to making you going after him into Limbo,” Benny said.

“I know,” Dean said “But I can’t leave Sam and Bobby there.”

“Go and find them,” Jo said, now wearing Crowley’s son’s face. “I’ll deal with Crowley. Bring them back, you hear?”

\- - -

** Dream: Limbo **

_Dreamer: No one_   
_Team: Dean, Benny_   
_Target: No one_

Benny coughed and spat out water. Somehow he’d ended up floating on his back under a scorching sun. He climbed out of the water, and trudged up the beach with squishy boots.

“You okay?” Dean said.

“I’m good,” Benny said. “This is Limbo? I always thought it’d be emptier.”

The shore was lined with ash gray skyscrapers. Half of the buildings were sinking into the beach. They were eroded away, crumbling like ice shelves into the sea. Benny could imagine an entire population of people having once lived here. It could have been a world where people thrived and lived and had family. Now it stood neglected and abandoned and half-buried in the sand.

This perhaps, would be like what Atlantis looked like if it was raised from the ocean: A forgotten city.

“Cas and I built this place years ago,” Dean said. “Can you believe it?”

“There ain’t a lot of things I won’t believe about you, brother,” Benny said.

Dean laughed. Despite the howling wind and his soaked clothes, his grin was wild; it belonged here. “C’mon, let’s find Cas. I have a feeling where he may be.”

They trotted up the beach and onto a paved road that led through the decaying city. Benny saw parks and playgrounds. He saw motels and drive-through. There were schools and playgrounds, and grocery stores and gas stations. Outside of the city, hills and mountains and meadows and field went on for miles.

Though Benny could no longer see or hear the sea, he could hear the strong wind that was following them, blowing in between the gaps of the eroding creations.

In the center of Limbo, past a rolling hill, Dean and Benny reached a city with tall skyscrapers. The streets were empty. The buildings were modern and less run down than those by the beach, though bits and pieces of concrete were falling from the sides of the buildings.

“This is it,” Dean said, and pushed open the doors to a building that bore an uncanny resemblance to the Chrysler building.

The lobby was empty. Couches and potted plants were arranged artfully around the room. Dean walked to an elevator and pressed the button for the penthouse. Benny followed him.

“Cas loved penthouses. Said they made him feel closer to the sky,” Dean said.

It was a cozy apartment. Thick rugs covered the floor, curtains were drawn over the windows, and fake flames danced in the fireplace.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas said. He was sitting at a dining table, with his hands clasped in front of him. He looked at them with bright eyes. “You’ve come.”

“Where is Sam, Cas?” Dean said.

“You’ll run if I give him to you,” Cas said.

“You still have Bobby, right? You know I won’t leave without Bobby.”

Cas took a long moment to consider. “Sam is in the balcony. You can take him.”

“Benny, get Sam out of here, will you?” Dean said.

“Brother,” Benny started to say.

“I’ll be fine,” Dean said. He took a seat next to Cas. “I’m just gonna talk to Cas.”

Benny pulled open the balcony door. Sam was gagged, and he was bound to a chair. The wind was strong when they were so high up here. Debris were falling off the top of the nearby buildings. They were crumbling like sand castles.

Benny pulled out a knife, and knelt next to Sam. “Don’t move. I don’t wanna cut you.”

Sam shook his head frantically. His mouth was working around the gag, making guttural sounds that made no sense to Benny. Benny ignored him, and worked on the ropes, while keeping an eye on the conversation going on in the apartment.

“You aren’t real,” Dean said.

“Don’t say that,” Cas said.

“I know that ‘cause you’re wearing the coat,” Dean said, touching Cas on the sleeve before holding his hand. “I keep it in a box in our room. That’s all I left of you.”

“Why would you have my coat?” Cas said.

“You jumped from a bridge,” Dean said.

Cas watched him with puzzled eyes. “Why would I do that, Dean?”

“Because you wouldn’t leave this place,” Dean said. “You thought Limbo was real. I had to make you realize it was a dream. I had to make you doubt reality.”

“You planted doubts in my mind,” Cas said slowly with realization. “And I never stopped doubting, even after I woke.”

“They weren’t supposed to stick in your head after we got out of here, Cas,” Dean said, blinking back tears. “I’m sorry.”

Cas cupped Dean’s face with a careful hand. A ring glinted on his finger. “I forgive you.”

Benny made short work of the ropes that bound Sam’s hand behind his back. The ropes were thick as a cable. The rope fell away, and revealed Sam’s duct-taped wrists underneath it.

Benny got hit in the face, when Sam thrashed in the chair with his hands tied behind him. The chair toppled over, and Sam crawled on his side, attempting to get inside the apartment where Cas and Dean were, with his legs still tied to the chair.

“The hell are you doing?” Benny said.

Sam grunted behind his gag. He shoved at Benny hard with his shoulder. Benny stumbled. His cap was knocked off his head and carried away by a gust of wind.

“That’s it. You’re getting out of here,” Benny said. He grabbed Sam, and pressed him against the railing. Sam struggled against his hold. It was no easy task, but Benny heaved Sam up from the floor, and tipped him over the railing, pouring him into empty space.

Sam’s yell was muffled all the way down. Benny leaned over the railing to see if he could spot where Sam had landed. Sam had disappeared from Limbo.

“Do you remember when you saved me from Alastair?” Dean said.

“Of course I do,” Cas said.

“You saved me and over again,” Dean said, sounding like a lost kid. “It was supposed to be my turn to save you, Cas.”

“You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved,” Cas said.

“Yeah,” Dean murmured. “I guess I know that now.”

“Stay with me, Dean,” Cas said. He swiped a thumb over Dean’s cheek, and Dean stared up at him.

“What?”

“We were happy here,” Cas said. “We can stay in this world that we built. We can grow old together.”

“Like we did before,” Dean said.

“In our dreams.”

The wind was getting harsher and colder on the balcony. The walls of the building were collapsing. Debris were falling around Benny, missing him by inches. Benny grasped the railing of the balcony with both hands, so he wouldn’t be blown off the building.

Benny took one last look into the room. Cas was holding Dean by the back of his neck, pressing their foreheads together. Dean was still and pliant in his chair, curling his hands on Cas’s knees.

“But I’ve gotta save Bobby, Cas.”

“I’ll let Bobby go, if you promise to stay,” Cas said quietly. “That’s all I ask.”

“Okay,” Dean breathed. “Okay. I can do that.”

The balcony collapsed with a thunderous crack. Benny fell, plunging down fifty stories of dream space.

\- - -

** Reality **

Benny jolted awake.

The train shook a little when it rattled along the tracks, but it was quiet. All Benny could hear was the quiet hum of the air-conditioner in the compartment.

Benny pulled out the drip tube from his arm.

His cap was folded neatly on his lap, right where he’d left it.

The first-class compartment was small. There were two wide seats on each side of the compartment. A sliding glass door separated it from the rest of train. IV lines snaked out of the open glass door and into the dream-sharing machine in the hallway.

Benny heard faint mutterings from the compartment next door. Garth, Jo, and Ellen were reorienting themselves after waking from the dream. They had already disconnected Crowley from the dream-sharing machine, but they would keep him sedated for a while longer until they packed away everything.

“You’re awake,” Sam said, glaring at Benny and keeping a hand on Dean’s pulse Dean and Bobby were still sleeping in their seats. “What have you done to them?”

“Easy,” Benny said. If Sam could tear himself away from Dean, Benny would probably have been beaten to a pulp by now. “It ain’t my fault.”

Bobby started coughing behind them, having choked on his own spit, waking from the dream.

“Where’s the other idjit?” Bobby said.

“Bobby,” Sam said.

Bobby must have heard something in that word, because he stood on unsteady legs as the compartment shook. “The rest of us are out. Shut off the machine. Cut off the drugs.”

Sam pulled out the drip tube from Dean’s arm, disconnecting the sedatives from the dream-sharing machine.

“He’s not waking up,” Sam said.

“What has he done now?” Bobby said.

“Dean.” Sam slapped Dean on both cheeks. He did it again, and again. Each red handprint took longer to fade from Dean’s face than the last, but Sam wasn’t showing any sign of stopping. “Dean, you have to wake up.”

Something about it reminded Benny of what Einstein had once said about insanity, about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

“Sam,” Benny said uneasily. Some words came to the tip of his tongue; they were words from a half-forgotten dream. “You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”

Dean didn’t wake up. His head lolled limply back against his chair.

“Dean, come back,” Sam said, choking back tears. “Please.”

Benny and Bobby stayed quiet.

They waited for Dean to open his eyes.

They waited.

They waited.


End file.
